


An Army Doctor

by demoncat22



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 07:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3166130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demoncat22/pseuds/demoncat22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You were a doctor."</p>
<p>The words welled up in his throat, defensive and angry, and before he realized, burst from his mouth, a horrible, familiar need to prove himself.<br/></p><p>"I was a soldier."</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Army Doctor

John had always wanted to be a doctor.

He had always wanted to save people, patch them up, send them off. He had wanted to help, he had wanted to be useful.

“ _Useful?_ ” his father loomed over him, time blurring him until he was just a darkened figure, standing tall above him, voice cold and angry, the feeling of his mother’s fingers fluttering over his hair fretfully, “ _Why don’t you join the army then, boy? You’ll save a lot more people defending your country._ ”

“ _It’s_ _not_ his _life_ ,” Harry spat one winter’s night, her voice muffled by the knitted scarf she had wound around her neck, when they had snuck out to celebrate her 15th birthday, her shoulder a warm presence against his own, “ _We don’t have to listen to him.”_ She looked at him solemnly then, the streetlight casting an orange glow to her features, to where she had defiantly shaved the right side of her head, her nose and cheeks tinted pink from the cold, _“You can be whatever you want, Johnny.”_

He had always wanted to be a doctor.

He had always wanted to tell other people that their child, their parent, their friends and their families that they would make it through the night, that they would be able ot go home, be able to walk again, be able to spend more time with each other.

_“He can’t help being the way he is,”_ his mother said in a soothing voice, cradling him in her wool-clad arms, her eyes warm and concerned as she looked down at him, tired creases lining her face, her brown hair falling past her shoulders, _“War changed your father.”_

If war was so horrible, to make his father so distant, to make him so stiff and jumpy at every sound in the night, why would he ever want to join the army?

_"The army is where you will learn discipline."_  his father told both he and Harry, his hands clasped behind his back as he looked at the medals and awards that decorated their living room shelf, wearing his old jacket as if wearing a uniform, having already made it so very clear that any other path they took would be worth nothing in his eyes,  _"Where you will stop being so naive and childish."_

But he could still be a doctor if he entered the army, couldn't he?

A team had to have a medic, didn’t they?

The days he spent trying to please the aging man who only called him _boy_ , trying to be the best, pretending his voice didn’t crack when he strained for an excuse to speak to his father, any excuse.

_“An army doctor?”_ disdain dripped from his voice, his chestnut eyes narrowed where he sat on the tattered couch, posture ramrod straight and head turned to the side, _“That way you’ll never be a real soldier.”_

What would he have to do?

What would he have him do?

_“Fuck him!”_ Harry seethed as she stormed past him in the fading light of the day, her blonde hair wild and straggly where she hadn't shaved it off, wrenching the front door open, wearing yesterday’s clothes and dark bags under her eyes, “ _I’ve had enough!”_

At eighteen years old, standing at the front of the line with other men and women behind him, he very nearly enlisted as a soldier instead of an army doctor.

A split second decision with his sister’s dark brown eyes in his mind, his hand wavering over the sign-up sheet.

An army doctor.

He would compromise on army doctor.

_"That doesn't make you any less of a soldier."_ Mike told him over the sound of the television.


End file.
